As Ralph and I waited for our pupusas, I stared at the television behind him. We were in a non-descript Salvadoreño restaurant in Echo Park. There were only a few others in the restaraunt making it quiet enough to hear the replay of Selena’s now-famous concert at the Houston Astrodome. Saturday, March 31st marked the 12th anniversary of her tragic death.
I mimicked her slow tempo rendition of “Como la Flor” as if I was singing to Ralph.
“Did you even know her before she died?”
“No,” I admitted.
He looked at me like I was a fraud. Well, not really. But that’s what I felt like when I admitted my pre-1995 Selena ignorance.
In 1995 I was busy getting through my freshman year of high school. All I listened to was KROQ and was pretty much over the banda craze of the early 1990s. I hardly ever switched the dial to any of LA’s many popular Spanish-language stations.
When my 8-year old neighor, Jorge, came over to our house to tell us the breaking news that Selena had been shot and was dead (or dying, can’t remember), I thought “who?” Jorge saw the look of confusion on my face and told me it was the woman who sang “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.” I had some familiarity with the song, but didn’t know anything about the singer. Like many other people, I got to know Selena’s music posthumously and through the Gregory Nava film.
I remember watching the film in Ontario at the movie theater where my cousin worked (he got us in free, one of the perks of being employee of the year). I completely identified with the young Selena Quintanilla. My dad used to teach me Mexican songs. He’d translate the lyrics and explain what the words meant. Danny, my older brother, and I were put in singing contests and often willingly joined our dad when he brought out the guitar.
You make it sound like I was interrogating you… it’s cool I didn’t know of Chalino when he was alive.
If the plane taking RBD to their next sellout concert (or next sellout commercial shoot) crashed and burned due to an entirely appropriate EZLM action (Ejercito Zapatero de Liberacion Musical), suddenly everyone would know about them crazy rebeldes: it still doesn’t mean the music is any good! I didn’t know of Selena before the shooting, heard her music non-stop afterwards (not by choice) and still never choose to play it. Now I’m less inclined to bad mouth her music, I guess with age comes senility and indifference.
I tried listening to kroq recently, after many years of disinterest, and shit, they’re playing the same stuff! How pathetic. I’ll check in again in a few years.
Don’t feel bad, I didn’t know about her till she died, and that was becuase the local radio station kept replaying her music. especially “como la flor” that’s when I learned who Selena was.
When she died, I’d probably only been listening to her for less than a year. I remember hearing about it from my mother and thinking it was some really sick, weird pre-April Fool’s thing. When her death was confirmed, I felt cheated which, even then, seemed strange to me because, while I liked the music well enough, I wasn’t a huge fan. I think what I hated about it was the loss of the potential, of what she could have been. True, there are better singers but she was an entertainer and one of us and that meant something to me.
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